Assertion section in config doc

[SteveL-MSFT]

Summary of the new feature / enhancement

Admins may want to blast out configurations and have it only apply if the config is applicable via assertions. Having it as a dedicated section in the config makes it easy to understand what is being tested and you don't have to declare dependsOn for it as it would always be run first. In this case, if any assertion fails it would stop deployment immediately. One question is whether we need to assert(false) instead of always assuming assert(true).

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

No response

[denelon]

WinGet already has an "assert" section as a top-level concept in the 0.2 WinGet Configuration schema.

The intent is "don't run this configuration if the device isn't in the proper starting state".

One complexity is when we leverage composition to logically assemble a single configuration document to perform a complete configuration from a set of multiple configuration documents.

In the case where multiple documents are consolidated, all assertions should be executed first prior to any "set" operations.

I wouldn't want a scenario where a partial configuration is run and then fails "somewhere in the middle" due to a late assertion failure.